Chapter 2 – Who's the new girl?
The rest of the morning was a blur for Nora with Zen at her side constantly. She found herself in the position of being introduced to people she had shared school hallways with for the past 3 years, people she had met at one point or another. Some remembered her, most did not so Nora could see how Zen thought she was new.
"God! Are you kidding me? Who serves MEATLOAF on the first day of school? Way to get the kids excited on being back." Zen plopped some unidentifiable meat on her plate before shoving some onto Nora's. "Apparently the whole organic phase ain't hitting Sherville," Zen commented as she shouldered their way to a table in a corner nearest the outside exit in the cafeteria. Nora trailed behind, a little hesitant to be sitting at a table she saw had that guy who she had had the run in with this morning. Toby, she recalled. He was laughing at something a black guy with dreadlocks was telling him from across the table.
She took a moment to stare at him while Zen's attention was on the table and no one else there had noticed her presence. Toby's hair was a bright cloud around his head, almost halo-like in its messiness and golden highlights in his light brown hair. He seemed to have some sort of something, a spark that Nora didn't see in many people.
He turned his head, seeming to sense that he was the subject of someone's inspection. Nora averted her eyes quickly but not before their eyes met, violet with brown, and she felt a little catch in her chest and her pulse pounded in her ears.
"So, this is Nora. She's new and I've adopted her. She's gonna sit at this table so if you got a problem, I don't care." Zen waved Nora over to the opposite side of the table from Sun God and rolled right into the introductions. Nora's eyes slid over the rest of the people of the table a small polite smile on her face. There was the guy with the dreadlocks ("J.R."), a larger girl with pink and black hair ("Suzie") and another boy who looked like a thirteen-year-old skinhead ("Ed—and no he's not in the wrong grade, he is actually 17"). Each gave Nora a little wave or nod of acknowledgement and she sat in the only chair left after Zen sat.
There was a small pause and then: "Hey Zen, you got it wrong there. Nora's not new. She's been around since, I think, Freshman. Right?" Nora looked at Toby, taken aback that he, of all people, seemed to have noticed her at all in her quiet passage through the school's sacred hallways. He gave her a crooked smile and Nora felt her cheeks slowly flush. She broke eye contact with him, hoping that the age-old adage of "If I can't see you then you can't see me" would actually work in this instance.
"Girl! You could've told me!" Zen exclaimed good-naturedly, hitting Nora on her shoulder.
Nora smiled at Zen, partly out of gratefulness for distracting Toby from Nora's blush and partly because Zen's enthusiasm was hard not to pick up. "I tried about 4 hours ago but you basically run over people."
The others at the table cracked up. "You have to admit Zen. You're like a 300-mile-an-hour train heading in one direction!" J.R. said as he tugged on a lock of Zen's hair. She grinned and did something to him under the table that caused him to yelp and scoot away from her on the bench. Nora laughed, feeling strangely at ease when normally she was quite reserved.
Toby watched her from across the table while pretending to listen to J.R.'s latest theory of meatloaf evolution. Her hair was dark chocolate in color, she had a small nose and pink rosy lips with a full lower lip that her little teeth kept catching on and distracting Toby. Her eyes were brown and large; she seemed to always be watching her environment, and not in a paranoid, who's-got-me-in-their-sights kind of way, but as if she didn't want to miss out on any part of what was going around her. Though strangely enough, it wasn't as if she was participating in it, she was just there. Seeing everything around her.
Toby could see that she was a bit shy and he understood why he hadn't really noticed her until he ran her over this morning. For some reason, he had a feeling about her. He wasn't sure if it was a good or bad feeling but he did know that after that one moment of something just before she sat at the table, she hadn't looked at him once and he hadn't stopped looking at her.
Nora passed the remainder of her day in a sort of happy buzz. She hadn't actually had a close friend before and Zen was really on her way to earning #1 position. Zen hadn't stopped talking to her and giving her bits and pieces of knowledge to use in navigating her way through Sherville High.
"Oh my god, she is the last person you want to be seen talking to," this was in the direction of a black-haired, heavily make-uped and honestly slutty-dressed girl standing on the front steps of the building as Zen and Nora were making their way out to the street after school. "This past summer, she cheated on her boyfriend by sleeping with his best friend who was dating her best friend! I shudder to think of where that karma is going to get her in her next life. Probably a fat slug in the middle of some Indian prayer temple."
Nora laughed. She'd laughed more in the past day than she had in weeks. "Zen, you're great. I have to get going," she said, patting Zen on the arm as Zen spotted someone she wanted to talk to quickly before heading home. Zen gave her a blazing smile and an impulsive hug, reminding Nora of the party in two days as Nora made her way down the steps.
Nora looked back to say "I won't forget!" and turned back around just in time to catch herself before she bumped into the tall person standing directly in front of her on the sidewalk—Toby. Of course.
She looked up to meet bright mischievous-looking eyes and that crooked, look-at-my-lips-even-though-you're-trying-to-avoid-it smile. "Hey there. You almost got me that time," his voice clearly amused.
She was staring at his violet eyes for what seemed like a minute before his words registered on her brain. "Yes. I did. Sorry. I have to go." Nora silently cursed her awkward tongue as she tentatively smiled at him and walked around him in the direction of her house. She could feel his eyes on her and hoped that she didn't trip over her own feet while he was watching.
